IPS officer who probed Arunachal PDS scam goes missing

An IPS officer who probed a Rs. 1000-crore scam in the Public Distribution System in Arunachal Pradesh, has gone missing from Tippi, West Kameng district.

M.S. Chauhan headed the Special Investigation Cell, constituted in 2008 at the directive of the Gauhati High Court following a public interest litigation petition filed in 2004 seeking a thorough probe into the scam.

Inspector General Arvind Deep told The Hindu that Mr. Chauhan, who was transferred to Delhi on October 10, was on his way from Itanagar to Tawang, and he went missing from Tippi on Tuesday afternoon.

“We have got some definite and positive leads and hope to solve the case very soon,” the IGP said, but declined to divulge details.

Mr. Chauhan reportedly asked a police inspector and a constable driver, who had been accompanying him, to drop him at the Tippi market and wait for him by the side of a nearby river. But he did not come back, the police said.

In August 2010, SIC sleuths had arrested the former Chief Minister Gegong Apang in connection with the scam. Mr. Apang — whose name figured among the 56 accused including a former Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Assam, contractors and government officials named in a charge sheet filed by the SIC — however, denied his involvement in the scam.

This September, Chief Minister Nabam Tuki informed the Assembly, in reply to a written question by Trinamool Congress legislator Laeta Umbrey, that the probe had entered the final stage and charge sheets had been filed against 64 people. The trial was under process in the court of Special Judge-cum-District Sessions Judge of Lakhimpur in Assam.